


Little Fish

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Fluff, M/M, fairytale, merfolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 00:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14557404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx is a fishman used to tending his trade alone. But out on the sea, he’s found some pleasant company.





	Little Fish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaciopara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaciopara/gifts).



Crowe, Nyx had come to understand, was prepared for anything. She always had a quick quip, or a helpful comment; she always had an idea or a plan, and the will to put things in motion. Crowe had been running the show since she was ten, and Libertus was wrapped around her little finger. Nyx was wrapped around her little finger. She could excuse the total destruction of the world and still come out of it with people fiercely defending her.

This was why he wasn't surprised by her absence from the beach that morning. Why he could only smile and take in in stride as he got to their little shared boat and found one of her knives pinning an excuse to the wheelhouse doorframe. Scrawled out in her lipstick on a scrap from the notepad left below deck, where the radio was carefully secured against the rolling waves.

Crowe may have been prepared for anything, except some ex-lover showing up in town while they were all out the night before. They'll be lucky if she comes back from her hunting grounds in the canyon within the week. 

Which worked out just fine for him. Libertus had his restaurant, Crowe had her hunting ground. And Nyx had the horizon, and the waves, and his nets. He had been running the boat on his own for years— since his father retired and Selena had never shown an interest in the little business that kept them afloat. 

Nyx found that he preferred having the ocean to himself. 

Or mostly to himself. 

It had been months since he had hauled up the monster that had weighed his nets down. Since he had struggled with the ancient pulleys and lines not designed for the abuse he gave them and in desperate need for a new system (which he had fixed up about three weeks ago, in preparation for a longer voyage out to his own preferred spots). Since he had come face to face with a creature cutting through his nets with a bone knife, tangled in the knots Nyx spent another week repairing. 

Now, as he settled on the waves, tracking the steady promise of fish from the radar, he barely looked up as the rocking boat dipped a bit lower than normal and his rigging creaked with a not wholly unexpected weight. 

“Don't even think about it,” he warned, finally leaving his maps and coffee when he heard the storage container open. “There's nothing in there, anyway.”

The creature was a fixture now, almost. It climbed onto the boat whenever it wanted, digging through the stores of fish Nyx kept after a few days out on the ocean. He had caught the creature more than once— tail curling itself, reaching into the storage with pale human limbs— and somehow it always knew when he was alone. 

“Why not?” 

Nyx hadn't known what to do at first. He had heard stories and legends and all the usual talk that came with a life near the sea. He had thought about taking the creature home, locking it in the storage with the rest of the catch, letting someone smarter than him work out what it was and what to do. Instead, he took the knife it was using to cut through his nets and dumped it back into the water. Only to have the thing follow him for two days trying to get its knife back. 

Here, on the rolling waves, with the constants of the radio and the maps, Nyx preferred to think that the creature liked him. 

“Because I just got out here. Come back later.”

Or at least liked his food. The tail rippled and shrank, it moved along the wet decks and Nyx sighed in his exasperation. He didn't know how the creature found him each time, or why he encouraged it. He didn't know why he had expected anything less than the curious stubborn nature of the creature. “I didn’t bring enough to share.”

“You say that like I'd let you starve,” the creature left a mass of weeds behind where it's tail vanished, where it untangled pale legs from the mess and residue and not so delicately shed it all off deck and back into the water. “You hate being alone.”

“I like being alone,” Nyx helped the creature to shaking feet, and brought it to the narrow bunks. There were new bruises and scars, little nicks and cuts around wrists and hips and arms that looked like the burns left by rigging and coarse ropes. He carefully slipped the harness from the creature, where his weapons were held, fretting leather that needed to be replaced soon, before the salt ate it away completely. “You've been picking fights again.”

“Hardly.” The creature smiled, already drying in the warmth of the morning. “You ever try sleeping in coral? There's sharp edges there.”

“And the rope marks?”

Another grin and hands were pulling him closer by his shoulders, exploring familiar features with a grin. “Practice?”

Every trip out alone wast the same. The creature would visit, would change and keep him company. There would be a few days where the creature would learn the maintenance of the boat, of the storage, of the human way of hunting that he would call inelegant and dull. Nyx would give him the lines to manage, the individual things he seemed to prefer, stretched out between them to feel the smallest hint of a bite while Nyx tended the old nets. There would be days spent, when that pale skin refused to redden or darken, even as the creature dozed on deck, and piles of weeds were shucked off into the grey waters. There were nights spent in the same bed, with Nyx knowing they only had a few stolen days beneath a wild sky and the ever changing stars. 

They would sit together on the morning, watching the sun rise over distant islands. Coffee and breakfast between them, sometimes with an inhuman tail dipped into the water, sometimes with pale legs Nyx would let his hand wander over. He would point out the harbours and forests, the stretch of green of his hometown as they got close, nestled on the edge of sharp cliffs. He'd talk about how his sister, with her spears, would follow Crowe through the forests and to the canyons where they used to play, and how Libertus would always insist on paying him market prices for the fish he brought home for the restaurant. 

The creature, in turn, would tell him about the others like him, and the reefs and islands out beyond where Nyx roamed. He'd talk about forests of kelp and guide the boat through dangerous waters where others were lured to drown. He'd talk about family and friends, and how they were the little splashes that rippled calm nights, and who the creature spoke to over the side of the deck while Nyx repaired his nets and lines and radioed in his checkpoints. 

And the short days would end with the creature slipping back into the water with a kiss, and following as Nyx returned to his docks. With a shimmer of smooth tails and shining scales barely breaking the still waters of the harbour as Nyx shooed him away. 

It was the off season when Nyx took work with Libertus in the restaurant. When he stayed on relatively dry land and watched the people streaming through the doors of his friend’s establishment. Crowe would laugh as he missed the ocean and offer him trips in to the mountains and their rivers, where there was still fishing but in a smaller scale. Where he could get his feet wet. 

It was in the off season when the creature walked into Libertus’ restaurant, clothed in the spare shirt and jeans Nyx kept on the boat. Pilfered from a locked box that he secured with each trip. 

Crowe was not prepared for the way Nyx straightened to greet the creature— silent for once in the face of the kiss they shared. 

“Noctis,” Nyx smiled, breathed against the cheeky little grin his bold creature offered in greeting; “you stole my clothes.”

“Didn't think you'd want me showing up naked, human.”

He never asked why the creature came to him like that. Why he was followed so far out of the ocean. Nyx figured that he'd be scared of whatever Noctis’ response might be. Companionship, a meal, a warm bed. He didn't care how shallow the response might be, Nyx did not want to risk hearing that the answer was anything but affection. 

“Welcome home, little fish. Come meet everyone.”

When the seasons turned, Nyx trusted the creature that he had found cutting through his nets would join him out on the boat again. And follow him inland when the winds changed.


End file.
